An exceptional Regency period rosewood veneered occasional table mounted with an ormolu three quarter gallery, lyre and supports and brass inlaid stars. The whole is raised on small gilt-metal spheres. Attributed to the Royal cabinet maker, George Oakley. This table would have been part of a nest of tables.

With extensive premises in Bond Street and the City, Oakley undertook commissions for a wide and distinguished circle of patrons, including the Prince Regent, for whom he worked at Carlton House. During a career spanning over half a century he supplied both furniture and upholstery for the Mansion House and the Bank of England, as well as private clients such as the banker Thomas Baring, Lady Cotton of Madingley Hall, Cambridgeshire, and Edward, Lord Lascelles, for whom he worked at Harewood House, Hanover Square. A pioneer in the use of 'Buhl' inlay, Oakley established himself as one of the most original and innovative designers of the period, and his showrooms in Bond Street became a mecca for fashionable society. As early as 1799 he was granted a royal warrant after receiving a visit from Queen Charlotte and other members of the royal family, on which occasion, it was reported, '... her MAJESTY, the Duke and Duchess of YORK, and the PRINCESSES, &c., highly approved of the splendid variety which has justly attracted the notice of the fashionable world' (Morning Chronicle, May 1799, quoted in Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1600-1840, 1986, p.658). In 1801 the Journal des Luxus und der Moden noted 'everyone of taste and discrimination' is 'making purchases at Oakley's, the most tasteful of London's cabinet-makers'.

Condition
Good